


Chemical Consistencies

by sixteencrows



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Character Study, Gen, MacCready POV, Platonic Relationships, chem headcanon, pre war was probably pretty fucked let's be real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24841138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixteencrows/pseuds/sixteencrows
Summary: “Looks like Psycho, you’ll see that a lot when you’re dealing with raiders.” I mentally braced myself for the onslaught of questions that I was sure would be bubbling to the surface right about… Now.“Huh, didn’t think that stuff still existed.”“What?”
Relationships: Robert Joseph MacCready/Male Sole Survivor, Robert Joseph MacCready/Sole Survivor
Kudos: 27





	Chemical Consistencies

It’s been nearly four weeks since I first started travelling with Wilhelm and I gotta say, there are some days that it feels a little bit like babysitting. I didn’t know at the time just what his situation was but I really should have known that anyone who takes the first offered price for a mercenary just isn’t from around here. That’s not totally fair, I guess, technically he’s been living here longer that I have. Longer than caps as currency. Longer than most of the population.

Still, his Boston was a lot different from our Commonwealth, and it felt like not a day went by that he didn’t ask me something about an otherwise mundane fact of life here. 

What are the Gunners?  
Mercenaries, jerks too.

What is a deathclaw mutated from?  
Jackson’s chameleon.

What causes rad storms?  
I don’t know, radiation?

“What’s that?”

I peered over at him while we did a sweep of a raider hideout. Well, former raider hideout. Credit where credit is due, Wilhelm could plow through a group of those guys without breaking a sweat. Even without the power armor he was huge, probably twice my weight and taller than any human had any right to be. He looks pretty threatening provided you don’t realize how freaking nice he is.

“Looks like Psycho, you’ll see that a lot when you’re dealing with raiders.” I mentally braced myself for the onslaught of questions that I was sure would be bubbling to the surface right about… Now.

“Huh, didn’t think that stuff still existed.”

“What?”

What? Wait no, I didn’t mean to say that outloud. Wilhelm had my full attention now, and I watched how he nudged the offending chem on the table with the muzzle of his shotgun. He didn’t seem nervous per se, more concerned. It was as though the highly addictive, rage inducing, and slightly rusted syringe was a small animal that may or may not be playing dead.

“We had it before the war,” he said, not seeming able to tear his eyes away from it, “though I’m sure it has changed a little since then… Never really learned what went into it, but I know most of what we saw was made in pretty strict government labs. Can’t imagine it’s something that could really be recreated now.”

“Wait wait wait.” I tried to rewind what I just heard, what does he? How does he? “Why do you know what Psycho is? You’re saying it’s Pre-War? And what do you mean you ‘saw’ it, did you used to take that garbage?” Okay maybe that last part was a bit harsh, the guy is paying you to have his back maybe don’t trash talk him directly to his face.

Wilhelm got quiet, did I piss him off? I swear for a guy who seems pretty simple there are times when I just can’t figure out what is going through his head.

“They gave it to us when I was in the service,” he finally said. There was a hint of something in his voice. Not sadness, more that feeling you get when you are trying to recall an old memory. Not a happy one either, more something you’d gone numb to a long time ago. “Our higher ups, I mean. Said it would boost our performance, make us stronger and more resilient. The doses were always pretty small and the whole experiment seemed pretty controlled but as it went on there were… problems, I guess you could say.”

He paused, God I hate his pauses. Sometimes I wished he would just cut to the chase, but he always seemed to mull over every sentence in his head like he just couldn’t string the right words together.

“At first they would give you a little and you would feel your heart start to race. You’d throw yourself into a fight without thinking and some primal part of your brain would take over. Eventually, when the doses got bigger, it would get to the point where you felt like your blood was on fire and the fluorescent lights of the barracks would burn your eyes even hours after the drug should have worn off.” He finally took his eyes away from the table, pushing his wire glasses a little further up his nose while he tried to find something, anything else to look at. Eventually he turned his gaze, always a little bloodshot, towards me and I tried not to audibly gulp.

“It only really became a problem when we started fighting amongst each other. There were side effects, sure, but those could easily be waved away as “pre-existing”, the brawls off the battlefield were another thing.”

I’d never really heard Wilhelm talk about the war before this. Sure, I knew he was a soldier and I knew he was familiar with, and even prefered, power armor but this felt like something else entirely. I’ve heard a lot of people wax poetic about Pre-War times, how simple and clean things were, but I knew it was garbage. There’s no way some perfect world could result in a place like this, they must have had their own crap to deal with.

Before I could ask him any questions, maybe dig a little deeper into just how screwed up the world really was back then, his manner shifted. He looked away, back to searching the room for usable supplies, and his voice got a little lighter.

“I don’t remember what the guys in the lab called it, oxy-something, or maybe it started with a B. I don’t know,” he stooped for a second to pick up a couple caps that had fallen to the floor during the earlier fire fight. “We called it Psycho, just thought it was funny to hear that name stuck around.”

“Hahah yeah,” I replied, trying to keep my tone light. “Real funny.”

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if people will find this interesting, just wanted to explore some thoughts I have regarding Pre-War military in the Fallout world. Wilhelm, my Sole Survivor, is a very different character from what I usually play being more brute force than stealth and persuasion. He's pretty fun to write and I feel like him and MacCready would have an interesting dynamic.


End file.
